A year ago, Crystal Charbonneau was pregnant and, at 20 weeks gestation, was diagnosed with an anencephalic baby. Knowing their baby would die, she and her husband Adam from St. Paul were offered abortion, but refused.

When the freshly named patriarch of Venice, Cardinal Angelo Roncalli, chose 37-year old Father Loris Capovilla as his personal secretary in 1953, a skeptical adviser told the cardinal that the priest looked too sickly to bear the strain of his new job.